﻿6. SELF-DIRECTIONExtropians see personal self-direction as a desirable counterpart to open societies. As culture and technology present us with an ever-expanding range of choice, self-direction increases in importance. We decide for ourselves in what ways to change or to stay the same. Self-direction means being clear about our values and our purposes. Having clear purpose in life not only brings both practical and emotional rewards but also protects us against manipulation and control by others. Freedom from others brings fulfillment and personal progress only when combined with self-direction.For self-direction to be possible, we must first create a clear sense of self then implement that vision in action by exercising self-control. The human self contains a bundle of desires and drives built into the biological organism through evolutionary processes and cultural influence. Taking charge of ourselves requires us to choose from among our competing desires and subpersonalities. While spontaneity plays an important role, creating and sustaining a healthy and successful self requires self-discipline and persistence.Personal responsibility and autonomy go hand-in-hand with self-experimentation. Extropians take responsibility for the consequences of their choices, refusing to blame others for the results of their own free actions. Experimentation and self-transformation require risks; we wish to be free to evaluate potential risks and benefits for ourselves, applying our own judgment, and assuming responsibility for the outcome. We vigorously resist coercion from those who try to impose their judgments of the safety and effectiveness of various means of self-experimentation. Personal responsibility and self-determination are incompatible with authoritarian centralized control, which stifles the choices and spontaneous ordering of autonomous persons.Coercion, whether for the purported "good of the whole" or for the paternalistic protection of the individual, is unacceptable to us. Compulsion breeds ignorance and weakens the connection between personal choice and personal outcome, thereby destroying personal responsibility. Extropians are rational individualists, living by their own judgment, making reflective, informed choices, profiting from both success and shortcoming.Since self-direction applies to everyone, this principle requires that we respect the self-direction of others. This means trade not domination, rational discussion not coercion or manipulation, and cooperation rather than conflict wherever possible. In appreciating that other persons have their own lives, purposes, and values, we seek win-win cooperative solutions rather than trying to force our interests at the expense of others. We respect the autonomy and rationality of others by learning to communicate effectively and working towards mutually beneficial solutions.Extropians see benevolence as a virtue that guides our interactions with the self-directed lives of others. Benevolence naturally goes along with an appreciation of the value in other selves and with confidence in our own self. We see benevolence not as an obligation to sacrifice our interests, but as a disposition to be helpful to others. We approach others as potential sources of value, friendship, cooperation, and pleasure. We see a benevolent disposition not only as an emotionally more stable and enjoyable state than cynicism, hostility, and meanness, but also as more likely to induce reciprocal positive treatment. Benevolence implies a presumption of common moral decencies including politeness, patience, and honesty. While we do not seek to get along with everyone at any cost, we do seek to maximize the benefits of our interactions with others.Self-direction means being in charge of our lives. This requires choosing our action intelligently. This in turn requires independent thinking. Extropians recognize the common human weakness of giving up intellectual control to others. We see the surrender of independent judgement especially in religion, politics, morals, and relationships and strive to rise above it. Directing our lives asks us to determine for ourselves our values, purposes, and actions. New technologies offer us more choices not only over what we do but also over who we are physically, intellectually, and psychologically. By taking charge of ourselves we can use these new means to advance ourselves according to our personal values.

﻿7. RATIONAL THINKINGExtropians affirm reason, critical inquiry, intellectual independence, and honesty. We reject blind faith and the passive, comfortable thinking that leads to dogma, conformity, and stagnation. Our commitment to positive self-transformation requires us to analyze critically our current beliefs, behaviors, and strategies. Extropians therefore prefer readily to admit error and to learn from it rather than to profess infallibility. We prefer analytical thought to fuzzy but comfortable delusion, empiricism to mysticism, and independent evaluation to conformity. We affirm a philosophy of life but distance ourselves from dogma, whether religious, political, or personal, because of its blind faith, debasement of human worth, and systematic irrationality.We are not cynics who reject every new idea. Nor are we gullible people who accept every new idea without question. We employ critical and creative thinking to discover great new ideas while filtering out indefensible ideas whether new or old. We recognize that to advance ourselves on an individual and social level we need to critically challenge the dogmas and assumptions of the past while resisting the popular delusions of the present.We accept no final intellectual authorities. No individual, no institution, no book, and no single principle can serve as the source or standard of truth. All beliefs are fallible and must be open to testing and challenging. We do not accept revelation, authority, or emotion as reliable sources of knowledge. We place little weight on claims that cannot be checked. We rely on the judgement of our own minds while continually re-examining our own intellectual standards and skills. Our emphasis on the primacy of reason does not imply a rejection of emotion or intuition. These can carry useful information and play a legitimate role in thinking. But we do not take feelings and intuitions as irreducible, unquestionable authorities. We see them as unconscious information processing, the accuracy of which is uncertain.Extropians seek objective knowledge and truth. We hold that we can know reality, and that through science the human mind can progressively overcome its cognitive and sensory biases to discover the world as it really is. Humans deserve to be proud of what we have learned, yet should appreciate how much we have yet to learn. We feel confident in our ability to advance our knowledge, yet remain wary of our human propensity to settle for and defend any comfortable explanation.﻿

CONCLUSIONThese Principles are not intended as rules to be imposed on anyone. They are not endorsements of particular technologies. They are not final, unalterable statements. They are not offered as absolute truths. They do express the values and attitudes common to Extropians as we determinedly but playfully pursue our personal goals.FURTHER INFORMATIONMore extended treatments of these principles can be found in essays, some of which have been published in EXTROPY: The Journal of Transhumanist Thought (now Extropy Online atwww.extropy.org/eo/). Practical Optimism was previously called Dynamic Optimism. The original (1990) version of "Dynamic Optimism" appeared in Extropy #8. A different, more practically-oriented version is available on the web. Self-Transformation was discussed in "Technological Self-Transformation" in Extropy #10. The principle of Self-Direction was developed in "Self-Ownership: A Core Transhuman Virtue" in Extropy Online. A pancritical rationalist understanding of rational thinking was presented in "Pancritical Rationalism: An Extropic Metacontext for Memetic Rationalism" at the EXTRO 1 conference in 1994. The original essay on transhumanism, "Transhumanism: Toward a Futurist Philosophy" was published in Extropy, and a later statement of transhumanism was published in Free Inquiry as "On Becoming Posthuman". Answers to many questions arising from The Extropian Principles are answered in the FAQ at www.extropy.orgREADINGSThese books are listed because they express Extropian ideas. However, appearance on this list should not be taken to imply full agreement of a book or its author with the Extropian Principles, or vice versa. Reading just the first ten books listed will illuminate many components of the evolving Extropian worldview.These first ten are also included in the topic sections following.